THE CAPITAL OF IRISH AMERICA Irish began moving to Boston before the American Revolution. Some came for economic opportunities. Thousands of others were deported by the British to populate the colonies. Boston has Irish held the colonies at first St. Patrick had a Day celebration in 1737. Irish. Fleeing the Great Hunger, about 75,000 desperate refugees paid about $15 to board leaky “coffin ships” that could take a month to cross the Atlantic. So many people died on the journey, the ocean was called The Bowl of Tears. Yet poor, uneducated, and starving immigrants kept coming. In 1850, one-third of Boston’s population was Irish, and local citizens feared their town, called the Dublin of America, would become the “poor house of the world.” Mobs